I heard an interview with one of the Google management this morning on the radio. When China said they couldn't do non-approved searches on Google.ch, they set things up so chinese users were redirected to Google.HK instead. Google bloke said something like "We thought at the time the Chinese government would be OK with that". Google need a licence from the Chinese government to operate in China. That licence is now up for renewal and the Chinese government have made it absolutely clear that no, they were not OK with that. So Google caved, despite all the bullshine about freedom. So now if you go to Google.ch, you get a holding page that says 'for google.ch click here or for google.hk, click here'. Whats the betting the next time the licence is up for renewal, Google will find the Chinese government doesn't think that much of this solution either, so they'll have change it again, in a way that is equally more in favour of the Chinese government's 'information management strategy'.
The only think that blows more than Google caving like this is them coming out afterwards and claiming that they haven't caved. We all know it's because you want the ad revenue you get from China. We all know that despite all the mission statements and corporate bullcrap all you actually care about is money and the freedom of the Chinese people can go take a hike for all you care. Stop trying to tell us otherwise because nobody is that big an idiot.
